Why should you defeat a country militarily when you can buy the rulers relatively cheaply?
Imagine a Russian ruler who reports that an oligarch owns a high-rise building but has difficulty selling it, even though it would be an unusually good buy and the property is undervalued. Whether it would not be possible to find a real estate company in the USA interested in good deals that would help with this. A Russian bank could also be arranged, which has already promised to finance a new owner. Since a real estate company based in the US is only interested in exceptionally good deals, it talks to the oligarch, who ends up selling the high-rise for $100 million, which is 100% financed by the recommended bank. After two years, the US real estate company decides to sell the high-rise building again and finds another oligarch who buys the building for 1.5 billion USD. If you’re only interested in really, really good deals, then this was a really good deal.
At no time during the transaction is there a word of corruption or similarly strange words.
Rather, one speaks of advantageous transactions, which, however, should also lead to mutual advantages, which of course everyone understands, and so one also grants advantages of various kinds.
The corruption of the advantage naturally excludes other market participants and happens in a confidential environment that excludes public transparency. Therefore, all possible legal secrecy clauses are signed, and strict secrecy is promised.
The anxiety generation now consists in the fact that someone could separate themselves from this secrecy. This could result in both the financial advantage and other damage. To prevent this, one prefers to give the other person an advantage that one had not thought of at first, which seems completely unreasonably high, but whose procurement seems to be unavoidable due to the high potential for blackmail.
Putin, or rather his intelligence services, are likely to have collected more than sufficient material on each oligarch, which analyzes their advantageous dealings. In this way, it or its structures can control the economic balance of power accordingly as needed and, in case of doubt, change the economic ownership structure by replacing one for another if necessary. Property is non-existent and is therefore not a category that would be protected in any way. At least most oligarchs should be aware of the fact that they can be separated from their property at any time.
As is well known, this has happened several times, which are then usually justified by tax and corruption lawsuits. The case of Khodorkovsky and his oil company Yukos, with a large fortune worth billions that dissolved into nothing for him, is well known. The extensive elimination of intra-party competition in China was probably carried out in a similar way. In recent years, however, there have also been repeated reports of astonishing falls from windows on upper floors in Russia, which led to the death of those people who were by no means unknown in certain circles.
Economic, political and criminal power flow into a power structure that determines the goals and is supposed to guarantee the retention of power. To this end, control via corruption of advantage is an expedient structure. In the Third World War, it is a special form of anxiety generation that first creates the advantage and then creates anxiety.
For example, there is the documentary about the construction of the buildings needed for the Olympics in Sochi. This is called “Putin’s Games”, which had revealed that in the construction sector, a kickback of up to 50% was often common for the award of construction contracts accompanied by intimidation. This claimed “Valery Morozov, a Russian construction magnate, who then, according to his claim, fled Russia with his family.
With 50 billion in state and private investment, the Olympic Games in Sochi were by far the most expensive in Olympic history.
This runs through all contracts, especially large ones also in other fields.
The Russian military in particular does not seem to have been modernized to the required extent over the years by this corruption in the billions.
Since the damage of this particular corruption in the Ukraine war could no longer be concealed, Putin had decided to carry out real purges and so there was a wave of arrests. In any case, the billions no longer seem to be lying around.
The Hungarian ruler “Viktor Orban”, who was highly praised by Trump in the television discussion with Harris, is not only described as corrupt by the opposition leader in Hungary “Peter Magyar”. He claims that Hungary is the most corrupt country in the EU, which coincides with the repeated sharp protests of the other member states. For years, the EU has been withholding billions in funding that Hungary would normally be entitled to because of Orban’s violations in the areas of corruption. Hungary has not developed positively economically despite high subsidies from the EU, but it is now the second poorest country in the EU. “Peter Magyar” calculates that Germany was rebuilt after the Second World War with half of the subsidies that flowed to Hungary, and it then developed into the leading economic power in Europe.
According to a message dated 7.2.2024, the EU Commission is once again taking action against “Orban’s Hungary” because laws have been passed that restrict freedom of expression and are incompatible with democracy and thus violate European law. In the meantime, Orban’s party has launched a massive smear campaign against the West in Hungary, which is quite similar to Russia’s propaganda.
Orban maintains close contacts with the authoritarian rulers in Russia, China and Belarus. The Russian company “Rosatom” is building nuclear power plants worth about 12.5 billion euros in central Hungary. Whether family members and “friends” are involved in the construction of these facilities in the “usual” way has not been researched here. However, it is interesting that at a time when the billions from the EU are no longer flowing unconditionally, other very advantageous “deals” are being concluded or sought. For example, the Chinese ruler XI agreed on a “comprehensive strategic partnership” on the occasion of his visit to the very small country with about 9.7 million inhabitants on May 10, 2024. As early as January, the Chinese carmaker BYD announced that it wanted to build production facilities in southern Hungary. Investments in the billions are planned. Who is building all this?
It is extremely worrying that Trump considers Mr. Orban to be a very respected statesman, when in fact exactly the opposite is true throughout the democratic EU. It is therefore obvious that with the statement in his reference he is not referring to the partners in NATO, but to the opponents of the World War, i.e. Putin and Xi or similarly oriented people.
Using corruption with rulers of previous democracies is much cheaper than conquering such a country militarily.
Rather, the authoritarian regimes try to support the rulers who are well-disposed towards them through very good deals, to further expand corruption and thus to create dependencies that will result in the greatest possible steerability in political issues in the future.
The aim of the war is to transform democracies into dictatorships and easily controllable autocracies.
Viktor Orban appeared largely isolated at the NATO summit and then followed Donald Trump to talk about “paths to peace”. He had previously visited Zelensky in Ukraine, continued to Moscow and had a conversation with Putin lasting several hours, and Xi had also received him personally in Beijing. It is absolutely clear that this visit to the USA was intended to be a promotion for Trump and his election campaign. However, it is of course very unclear what other messages were transmitted here by the respective rulers.
If one understands that Trump’s campaign is centered on creating anxiety, then Trump’s words in campaign events “bad things will happen” sound like gloomy predictions of events that could create even more of the anxiety that serves him. We will never know whether there are any further agreements and therefore this remains pure speculation. However, the American state security should be very attentive.
Orban has been able to make enormous political capital through the wave of refugees deliberately created by Putin in Syria in 2015. The anxiety creation in the Hungarian population promoted by Orban, through the flows of migrants directly generated by Putin, has allowed him to win elections. This happens in front of everyone’s eyes and yet is not immediately apparent, since here too neither the will to perceive nor the perception of the highly cynical and inhuman connections is often absent.
Accusations and proceedings for corruption as well as the restriction of democratic rights by the EU against Orban are openly on the table.
The fight for a vibrant democracy in Hungary is currently in danger of being permanently lost and Trump supports Orban and at the same time says that he also receives considerable support through the “special” friend of Putin and Xi.
In any case, Hungary, which has been severely damaged by corruption, is not an example of economic competence.
Therefore, Trump is in no way competent with regard to economically healthy structures, but on the contrary. His economic incompetence is unsustainable and highly dangerous for the United States.
He supports the EU’s least economically successful outsider, who at the same time is increasingly opposed to democracy and has already largely abolished it at all possible levels. It is extremely disturbing that the Republican Party, led by Tump/Vance, maintains and supports precisely such relationships and rolls out the red carpet for Mr. Orban everywhere.
